RANSVESTIA

You asked about my other TV contact, in Brooklyn. I don't think “she” is a suitable candidate for membership. Being "a lady" isn't enough for "her," if you're willing to let it go at that. Or, to be a shade more specific, "she" uses a keen intelligence and great talent to attract and enjoy “as a woman" the excitement and pleasure unavailable in marriage as a man. This isn't intended as criticism; at one time, I had the same goals, but I soon found that I didn't relish the reality nearly as much as the fantasy. Sometimes we have to go a long ways to discover what it is that we don't want.

One more thought, which I'm sure you've had: a person who finds himself strongly drawn to TV may very well become convinced that it implies "gay" behavior simply because it seems to bar him from normal sex relationships. I'd be willing to bet that there are a good many prac- ticing homosexuals now who don't genuinely love or desire other males. But because they think they're "effeminate" (and, therefore, that no woman could desire them), they accept the only sexual role left to them... which fits all too neatly with their desire to be "womanly" in terms of costume and comportment. This is what has happened to my contact. In Brooklyn. In time, he'll know better...

It seems a real, if nasty, question whether you can achieve your goal of public education in the face of this situation. Only painful experience, as I can testify, will prove to many TVs that you are right. And mean- while, the public at large sees the evidence of their efforts to "find them- selves." A police court judge who is really enlightened may be able to tell the difference between a TV who goes with a man because he thinks no woman wants him, and a genuine, spontaneous homosexual in drag. But how many others see it? And how should the law differentiate between them if justice is our aim? Is the "difference" comparable to that between "accidental homicide" and murder with malice aforethought? This is what every TV ought to ask himself, when his own success at "femperson- ization" goes to his head, and at the same time he is starving for sex with a woman who "understands him."

Sorry to have been so longwinded, Virginia. I'll look forward to your own further development of your ideas and to more expressions of what TVs and their wives feel and think about all these questions.

Sincerely, Betty